


Art

by Davechicken



Series: Kylux - Fluff & Angst [36]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Body Image, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 14:05:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8288413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: Kylo is uncomfortable in his own skin.





	

Kylo stands in front of the mirror. It’s late, and he should be asleep. He should be asleep, but some half-remembered dream stirred him from the bed. Ghosts and whispered voices and memories overlapping with almost-happeneds. Screams, fingers, blood, scorch. 

It happens, from time to time. Things under the surface, bubbling up like the festering filth under the thick scum over the still water. Rotting, and decomposing, and flatulising out the waste-product through the skin. He can’t help it. You just have to let the wound drain from time to time.

Cold water on his face, and it chases the edges of his features. It clumps up in his thick brows, and draws rivulets across his skin. 

Pale. Even now. Pale like a plant starved of light. His cheeks gaunt, his eyes red-rimmed. His nose pokes out from his face like an exclamation mark, full and proboscis-like. Insectile and gross. It unbalances him, makes him look like he’ll fall forwards. His ears protrude like dishes scooping sound from the air, his hair lank and lifeless from the nightmare. Cooled sweat making his skin glisten sickly-gleamed.

The worst part is the echoes he sees there. The shadows of a smirk from before he was born. The curves of a man - and a woman - who are only his blood, and not his family.

The only family he claims? He took _his_ face, instead. His echoes of the shapes, the triangles and other-angles, carved in black and silver. He would rather that, than this.

Across, from one point to another… a half-done cross-out. It lingers like an unfinished criticism, the skin healed but the memory of pain etched deep. Wrong. He’s wrong. All of him.

She didn’t quite finish the job.

Down, into his shoulder. His body broad and strong, and useful. That’s all the good he can say of it: useful. The muscles and the bones have power, and he takes the offered gift. He’s tall, and he stands out. He doesn’t like that, even under mask and cloak. There’s no hiding when you’re him.

He’s tried. 

His brown eyes meet the blue ones behind, reflected back at him. Their gaze caught and bounced through transparisteel, flipped one eighty. 

“Couldn’t sleep?”  


Kylo shakes his head. “No.”

It is not a judgement on him. It is not a failure in his lover, but a failure in himself. He enjoys their time together, and it makes him feel better than he can remember feeling. 

Arms around his waist, a nose at his neck. He puts his own - larger - palms over them and melts just a little into the touches.

“Bad dream?”  


“Yes.”  


“Want to talk about it?”  


“No.”  


Hux nods, and pulls with his hands. He’s tired, Kylo can see. He needs sleep more than Kylo does, has less ability to function when disturbed. Not that he needs _much_ , just **more**.

Kylo allows himself to be guided back into bed, and curls on his side, facing his lover. They both sling a hand under the pillow below their heads, mirroring one another. Hux’s fingers slide over his flank, feeling the slight swell and fall. 

Hux needs to sleep, but he can’t while Kylo is distressed. He tries to mimic feeling calm, tries to eke out the tension in his body so Hux can relax. 

“What is it?” the man asks, after a pause.   


“Nothing.”  


“You’re a terrible liar.”  


Maybe he is. Kylo isn’t sure he can say it.

A longer pause. He’s hurting Hux with his lack of truth, with not trusting him. It isn’t intentional.

“I don’t know how you can bear to look at me.”  


“At you? Ren… you’re a work of art.”  


“Doesn’t mean I’m worth looking at. Not all art is attractive.”  


Fingers slice through the red mark, hurting more than a saber ever could. Hux’s judgement means more than life, than death. Maybe more than the Force itself. It is deep and abiding, fierce and alive.

“You… are the most beautiful man I have ever been fortunate enough to see,” he says, his words ringing with emotional sincerity.   


To the edge of the wound, around the point of his jaw, to his chin. Up, and to lips he often kisses; lips that part and place kisses to the tips against them. 

“You are,” Hux shoves out harder from his own face, past even teeth in a perfect mouth.  


Kylo closes his eyes to the soft chases around his face. Over his nose (and then a kiss to the end), against his cheek and jawbone (like the lightest of gusts), to his temple. Wound hair around digits, and he feels his face prick at the edges with electric-nerve fire.

“Hux…”  


Everywhere they meet, fire bounces. A circuit complete, a rush of singing sensation. Wordless worship, across his brow and behind his ears. Down his throat, following collarbones.

“Shhh.”  


Hux’s next words are spoken in the release of skin after a kiss. The little gusts as he lifts from each press. Claiming and appreciating every inch, mapping him and tasting the worry on his flesh.

“You’re beautiful,” Hux insists.  


Maybe he is. Maybe he is, for Hux. Words would never convince him, would never calm the monsters under his skin.

But the touches… they chase the demons down. Not forever, but for a while. The growling beasts stop screaming, and he curls in tighter against Hux. The contact eases them both back to sleep.

He can be art, for Hux. Art isn’t for everyone.


End file.
